At the end of 1943 the 1st Assault Brigade of the Italian SS Legions was created, which finally became the 29th Italian Waffen-SS Grenadier Division. This Division was made up of 15,000 Italian volunteers under General Pietro Mannelli and Major Peter Hansen (of Chilean origin). They received military training at the Muzzingen Training Center located in the Black Forest of Germany, and were structured as: the 81st and 82nd SS Grenadier Regiments, the 29th SS Artillery Regiment, the 29th SS Fusiliers Battalion, the SS Mixed Group Anticarro, the SS Armada Militia and the 29th SS Companies of Engineers, Reconnaissance and Anticarro. The SS Battalions "Italia", "Vendetta" and "Benito Mussolini" were also created.
In the month of April of 1944, three battalions of the Italian SS Legions fought against the Allied forces in Anzio and Nettuno with excellent results, for that reason, on May 3, 1944, Heinrich Himmler allowed them to fully integrate the Waffen SS, initially as a Grenadier Brigade (Waffen Grenadier Brigade der SS Italienische Nr. 1) and at the end of that same year, when they reach the figure of 15,000 men, they officially become the 29th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division "ITALIANISCHE". During the first months of the year 1945, the Division fought against the French units in Lombardy and against the resistance in Piedmont. Finally, on April 30, 1945, the last surviving members of the Division surrendered to US troops in Gorgonzola, Lombardy.